What if the problem with personal computing nowadays is that it's not aristocratic enough, or at least, it lacks that Old Money sensibility?
Not being born to generational wealth myself, I can only go on what I've heard and read, but it's got to be part of staying rich that you don't waste too much money.
It's almost a cliche that families that have been rich for a long time will prioritise *durability*: around the smolnet and retrocomputing spaces, the idea of "repair not replace" is also well respected, so we have that in common. It may be a stock joke that England's hereditary aristocrats are sometimes mistaken for their own gardening staff, because they often knock about in clothes with yet-to-be-repaired holes and tears, but it points to the fact that in the very long term it is financially better to buy good quality stuff and keep it working, rather than pay for replacements.
My own experience of this is with shoes: I have strangely shaped feet (large tall feet that are short from toe to heel) and my shoes must be replaced every four or five years. I have been told again and again that a one-time payment of five times the price of a pair of undurable shoes is going to be cheaper than replacing those shoes six times, but do I listen?
So where are the durable computers? Where are the people who can say "Ah yes, these Perl scripts have been in the family since my great grand-uncle paid to have them made by a wonderful firm in Birmingham! Very clear and simple code and well documented, though."
I also can't imagine that our notional Old Money user of computing would be particularly happy with the rental and subscription models that are now so prevalent.
It should always be an option to have complete control over a device. Sometimes purchasing a computing devices comes bundled with a number of options to forgo some control in exchange for sometimes else of value (e.g., money, avoiding hassle). This may also impinge on privacy. The problem is when unbundling isn't an affordable or permitted option.
This generalises in various ways: being able to pay not to have adverts in any given context, and being able to choose who repairs or works on one's computers, similar to being able to choose to fix one's own car or choose which garage repairs it, rather than those questions being reserved to the manufacturer as they can be with computers and mobile phones.
I grew up with computers in the 1980s, which did not do things unless told to. Even when UNIX came along, the most a computer actually did something of its own accord was when it told you someone was trying to initiate a ytalk chat, or that a new email had arrived - this was interspersed with responses to commands in the terminal window.
Even today, as I use Linux on the desktop with an old-style window manager, my desktop effectively does not give me notifications and pop-ups. A device whose manufactures respected me would not keep trying to interrupt me.
There is a demand for all these desirable characteristics in personal computing, but I suspect that "network effects" mean that the cost of deviating from the common models of computing is absurdly high.
This post has been as part of ROOPHLOCH 2024. I am racing against an impending thunderstorm more than against battery life, on top of a building (the better to attract the lightning).
